I think his last words before he stepped off were "I'm going back home now" but the radio transmission wasn't clear at all. Some news reports I've read say it was "Sometimes you have to go really high to see how small you are" but I think he added a bit at the end.
Why do people keep saying that, or that "record speed splat" comment earlier. Do you guys not understand the concept of "terminal velocity"? Baumgartner was able to break the sound barrier because at higher altitudes the air is less dense and thus causes less resistance. However, closer to earth it is more dense and thus is maximum speed is reduced to his terminal velocity. In fact during the entire thing you can observe his speedometer reaching a maximum speed and then showing his speed decrease during freefall, before opening the parachute.
As far as I can find, the terminal velocity of a skydiver is about 60 m/s, and I'm pretty sure there are already a number of people who have died from impacts at that speed, but whose bodies did not disintegrate from it. His body would have an even harder time disappearing, considering the suit he was wearing.
In any case, I'm glad everything went fine and we didn't end up with a corpse.
Why do people keep saying that, or that "record speed splat" comment earlier. Do you guys not understand the concept of "terminal velocity"? Baumgartner was able to break the sound barrier because at higher altitudes the air is less dense and thus causes less resistance. However, closer to earth it is more dense and thus is maximum speed is reduced to his terminal velocity. In fact during the entire thing you can observe his speedometer reaching a maximum speed and then showing his speed decrease during freefall, before opening the parachute.
As far as I can find, the terminal velocity of a skydiver is about 60 m/s, and I'm pretty sure there are already a number of people who have died from impacts at that speed, but whose bodies did not disintegrate from it. His body would have an even harder time disappearing, considering the suit he was wearing.
In any case, I'm glad everything went fine and we didn't end up with a corpse.
Would he have enough time to slow to terminal velocity? Also, if the suit failed, there might not be a corpse by the time he hit the ground (I'm not actually sure if he was falling fast enough for that, but you get the idea).
So the BBC made a documentary about this called "Space Dive" and it seems pretty good. I haven't seen all of it yet, but they talk about a lot of stuff Red Bull didn't tell us at the time and show a bit of footage we haven't seen before.
It's on DVD/Blu-Ray, or you can just, you know... find it... around...
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As far as I can find, the terminal velocity of a skydiver is about 60 m/s, and I'm pretty sure there are already a number of people who have died from impacts at that speed, but whose bodies did not disintegrate from it. His body would have an even harder time disappearing, considering the suit he was wearing.
In any case, I'm glad everything went fine and we didn't end up with a corpse.
It's on DVD/Blu-Ray, or you can just, you know... find it... around...